


Nowhere Men

by Namarie



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Fringe
Genre: Crossover, Episode Related, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namarie/pseuds/Namarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explorations of nonexistence, as seen through the eyes of three recent sci-fi TV characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nowhere Men

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kaffyr for her expert beta!  
> Spoilers up to the season 3 finale of _Fringe_ , and _Doctor Who_ season 5.

“...So that we can begin to work together to fix--”

In the middle of his statement, everything around Peter suddenly blurs and vanishes. He stumbles, and feels himself falling. No, it's not quite falling – it's like he's being plucked out of somewhere, and then he's being carried along at a breathtaking pace to somewhere else. This sensation ends abruptly, and now he _is_ falling. Oddly, hitting the ground doesn't hurt at all.

Peter gets up and brushes himself off. It's only then that he notices the bizarreness of his surroundings: everything is white and ... blank, he supposes the best way of describing it might be. In fact, the defining characteristic of wherever he is now seems to be its lack of defining characteristics. Even the ground, or floor, or whatever is completely flat and white. It gives a little when he jumps on it, but that's it. To add to the weirdness, it's hard to see very far in any direction, thanks to an impenetrable mist all around him.

“What the hell?” Peter mutters. This is unnerving, to say the least. A thought occurs to him, and he reaches up to touch the cut on his face. It's gone. That would seem to be proof of his hypothesis. His heart sinks. He isn't ready for this, if it's what he thinks it is. What if he's...

“You're not dead, if that's what you're thinking.”

The voice that breaks the silence is unfamiliar. Peter whirls around, but no one is visible. “Who said that? Where are you?”

“Oh, right.” The voice – it sounds like it belongs to a youngish guy, British – takes on an apologetic tone. “Sorry. Um, if you follow my voice for a bit, you should be able to see me. I'll just-- I'll just stay where I am until you come into view.”

Peter thinks it over for a second, then shrugs. “Why not?” If the guy is lying, and he is actually dead, it's not like anything worse could happen now. Unless this is hell, and there's some kind of elaborate, sinister plot in motion.

After a few seconds of walking toward the voice, Peter begins to see a figure through the mist. Another few seconds, and the mist clears. From what Peter sees, the man is young, and fairly unremarkable in appearance – definitely not threatening, at any rate. He gives Peter a small, wry smile. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Peter waits for a moment. The guy doesn't seem all that eager to explain, but Peter isn't feeling all that patient. “So if I'm not dead, what happened to me? Where are we?”

“I'm not entirely sure,” the other man begins, “but if I'm remembering correctly from where I was and what was happening before I ended up here, my guess is that neither of us exist anymore.”

Peter stares at him. “What?”

The other man grimaces. “Yeah, I know, I know: it sounds mental. But you kind of get used to that kind of thing when you're traveling with the Doctor, I guess.” Then he laughs, but it's a bitter laugh. “Or I guess, when you _traveled_ with him, that is,” he amends, emphasizing the past tense.

“The Doctor?” Peter shakes his head. “Who the hell is that? And for that matter, who are you?”

“Oh, you're not here because of the Doctor?” Looking mildly surprised, the man says, “Well, uh, I'll introduce myself then. I'm Rory Williams.”

“Peter Bishop,” Peter returns. “Sorry if I seem a little fixated, but you're saying we don't exist?”

“From what I can figure out, yeah,” Rory says. “What were you doing before you were here, if you don't mind me asking?”

Again, Peter debates whether or not to trust this guy, but then decides that he might as well tell him. “Okay, fine. I had just used a machine built specifically for me to create a bridge between two universes, so that my father and--” he hesitates, unsure how much detail he wants to go into, “and people from both sides can work together to fix the damage to the fabric of the universes.” Peter's been watching the man's face throughout this whole recitation, and he can't help chuckling a little at how wide his eyes are. “I'm sure I sound just as crazy to you as you do to me.”

“No, that's the really weird thing,” Rory answers. “I mean, let me tell you what was happening to me: I'd just been shot by a reptilian creature who lived miles underground with the rest of her race, and then a crack in the universe opened up next to me, and I ... I guess I got sucked in.”

Peter blinks. “A crack in the universe, huh?” He'd always just assumed that anyone unlucky enough to be right next to a vortex when it opened would always end up dying. “And you're sure we're not dead?”

“Well, not totally,” he admits. “But if this is some kind of afterlife, it just seems terrifically dull. I've been here for what has to be a while now, and nothing has changed. I always thought if there was an afterlife, it'd either be really great or really awful, you know?”

“I guess.” Peter takes a deep breath. “So, we don't exist anymore. Like George Bailey from _It's A Wonderful Life_ , or something?”

His companion looks blank for a second. “Oh, you mean that Jimmy Stewart movie that's always on at Christmas?” He shrugs. “Something like that, yeah. And I think that means--” He stops himself, looking troubled.

“What?”

With obvious reluctance, he looks up and says quietly, “I think that means no one back on Earth remembers us.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Peter demands, after he recovers his voice. The prospect of Olivia, Walter, Astrid, and everyone else not knowing who he is is making it hard for him to stay calm.

The other man's gaze drops away from Peter's again. “I don't _know_ it, but ... sometimes, when I'm sitting here with nothing else to do, I try to see if I can reach Amy or the Doctor somehow. And sometimes I think I can almost see them. And she doesn't seem to notice I'm gone.” He's staring at a specific spot in the distance, looking utterly dejected. Then he winces suddenly, clutching at his chest and falling to his knees. “And then,” he gasps, “before I can really see her, this happens.”

Peter rushes forward, but the man waves off his offer of help. “No, I'm all right,” he says, taking deep breaths. “It's just where I got shot, I think. The pain never lasts too long.”

“Okay. Whatever you say,” Peter says, more than slightly skeptical.

The guy gets to his feet slowly. “You could try looking for the people you were with.”

Looking around, Peter throws up his hands. “I don't see anyone or anything else here.”

“No,” the younger man corrects him, “you have to, I don't know, focus on them first.”

Starting to wonder again if this guy is completely off his rocker, Peter nevertheless does as Rory suggested. He turns away and clears his mind as best he can of anything but the room he'd just created as a bridge between the universes, focusing on seeing Olivia, his father, Walternate, and anyone else who might be there right now – or right when he left, since time doesn't seem to mean the same thing here.

After several seconds, he starts to see something in front of him. It's blurry, and it's like he's looking at it from many yards away, but he thinks it could be the bridge room. “I see them,” he mutters, as the scene comes into focus. It's Olivia, looking at a computer monitor, with her alternate right next to her. That surprises him, honestly; he would have thought Olivia wouldn't be able to stand working in close proximity to her right away. Walter comes into view, arguing with Walternate although he can't hear what they're saying. He concentrates, and manages to catch a few words. They appear to be arguing about the impossibility of the existence of the bridge room, although they each have a theory as to where it came from. Neither theory mentions Peter.

Peter draws back, and the vision vanishes. He notices that he's clenching his fists, and has to force himself to relax. Somehow he's certain, though he can't explain where the certainty came from. “You're right. They don't remember me.”

His companion nods, looking sympathetic. “Really makes you feel important, doesn't it? Amy's my fiancee, and she doesn't even seem to have noticed I'm gone.”

“And you're sure this isn't hell?” Peter says grimly. He can't think of much worse torture than to be stuck here in this unchanging landscape while life back home goes on without him – without even any memory of him. The fact that he at least knows Olivia is alive and well only goes so far in dulling the pain.

The other man sighs. He replies, “Well, I'm not going to try to tell you it's my favorite experience ever, or anything. But...” He trails off, then sits down on the ground again. “I don't know. I feel like there's a chance we're not stuck here forever.”

“That's a nice idea,” Peter says, “assuming if we do go back, the people we care about will in fact know who we are.” He sits down a couple of feet from his companion. “So. Rory Williams.”

“That's me,” he says, holding out a hand.

Peter shakes the offered hand. “I won't say it's nice to meet you, exactly, but I guess it's good to meet someone who is aware I exist.”

Rory smiles. “Likewise,” he says dryly.

After some moments of silence, the two men continue their conversation. Peter finds out that Rory is a nurse, and that he's been traveling all over the universe – and through time, apparently – with a man whose name is “the Doctor.” Peter gets the feeling that Rory went along on this trip in the first place more for his fiancee Amy than out of a strong desire to see the universe.

Despite the fact that he feels like his own stories of fringe events can't really compare to actually traveling to other planets (assuming Rory isn't actually crazy and making up these stories), Peter shares some of his Fringe Division experiences.

He's about to change the subject and ask Rory what this Doctor guy has told him about cracks or holes in the fabric of the universe when Rory takes a sudden deep breath. He gets to his feet, a little unsteady. “Whoa. That was weird.”

“What?” Peter stands up as well. He watches the younger man clutch at his side again. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Rory answers, frowning. “It's not the same thing as before. It doesn't really hurt. It's like--” Mid-sentence, he fades from view.

“Rory?” Peter steps forward quickly, trying to catch a glimpse of the man. But there's nothing to be seen. _Damn it_. It seems he's really alone here in nonexistence now. Does this mean he's going to fade away completely, too?

He paces back and forth over a section of the blank white ground for a while, half hoping that Rory has only disappeared temporarily. Of course, Rory stays gone. He has no idea how the guy could have lasted as long as he made it sound like he did without going totally nuts: all alone, with nothing to do or see, and no one to talk to. Maybe he'd spent as much time as he could trying to see his Amy.

With that thought, Peter stops pacing. If he's stuck here, he might as well try to see Olivia again. It'll be painful to see her when she doesn't remember him at all. But even so, if he can keep track of her in even the distant, unsatisfying way he'd seen her before, it will be so much better than nothing.

Accordingly, Peter clears his mind as best as he can, thinking only of Olivia and his desire to see her. It doesn't take as long this time for her to come into clear view. She isn't in the bridge room this time; he can't see much of her surroundings, but it looks like her apartment. She looks lost in thought – not sad, exactly, but almost. Peter aches to be there with her, to speak to her and touch her. _Olivia_ , he thinks, wishing she could hear him. Of course, even if she could, she wouldn't recognize his voice. But at least she's alive.

Peter is startled when Olivia looks up suddenly, seemingly in response to his thought. _Is it even possible for her to hear him? But why should I worry about impossibility_ , Peter thinks distractedly, _since I currently don't seem to exist? Olivia, can you hear me?_

Olivia looks puzzled for a second. Then she shakes her head and returns her gaze to her laptop screen. Peter sighs in frustration.

“Well, don't give up just yet, man. She deserves more effort than that, don't you think?”

Peter just about jumps out of his skin at the voice speaking from right behind him. His focus on Olivia lost in that instant, he whirls around. There's another unfamiliar guy standing inches away from him, wearing what looks like a bizarre old-fashioned professor costume, complete with bow tie. Based on his voice, it's another Brit, for some reason. “Who the hell are you? And where did you come from?”

The man smiles widely. “Excellent questions, both of them. As for the first one, technically, I'm no one at the moment – though 'at the moment' is also meaningless since time doesn't really exist in this place, which also really isn't a place. As for the second one, well, that would take either a very long time or a short time to answer, depending on what you really want to know.”

It takes a few seconds for Peter to respond. “Uh, okay. I concede your point about my first question, so how about I ask who you were before you came here?”

“I was the Doctor,” the man answers, reaching to shake Peter's hand without waiting for Peter to offer it. “Hello! Nice to meet you. Who were you?”

“Peter Bishop,” Peter says automatically – and then he processes what he's just heard. “Wait, you're the Doctor? The guy Rory was traveling with when he ended up here?”

“You met Rory?” The Doctor beams. “Well, of _course_ you met Rory! That's fabulous! Of course it's even more brilliant that he's not here anymore. He isn't, is he?”

“No,” Peter says. “He just vanished, a little while ago.” He holds up a hand. “And before you say anything, I know – time doesn't mean anything here. What can I say, I'm used to thinking and speaking in terms of the passage of time.”

The Doctor nods. “Most humans are,” he agrees. Then he blinks. “Wait, hang on. Did you say your name was Peter Bishop? As in, Bishop comma Peter?”

“Uh huh.” This guy might even be crazier than Walter, Peter thinks, which is saying a hell of a lot.

The Doctor looks like he might explode with excitement. “Oh, this is amazing! Imagine that: me, the Doctor, meeting Peter Bishop – and here of all places! Or non-places, I guess. And I suppose I don't have to imagine it and neither do you, Mr. Bishop, because it's actually happening!”

Peter just stares. This guy is definitely crazier than Walter.

“On second thought, though,” the Doctor continues, seeming not the slightest bit bothered by Peter's lack of response, “it's not all that far-fetched that we'd meet here. I mean, neither of us exist, this is Nonexistence, so it makes sense.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a bizarre-looking metal instrument with a green light at one end, which he then proceeds to hold out toward Peter. It starts to make a buzzing noise, at which Peter jumps back.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” he demands. He hadn't felt anything, but he isn't going to bet that will last.

The buzzing sound stops, and the Doctor looks at the instrument closely. “Yeah, okay, lots of residual energy from the two universes, and ooh, that energy right there is positively ancient.” He turns his gaze back to Peter. “In most cases, I wouldn't congratulate someone on tearing new holes in the fabric of the universes, but in your case, I'll make an exception. Well done.”

This is said much more gravely than anything else he's said. Peter is surprised by the rapid mood change, but not overly so. Maybe this Doctor is similar to his father in more ways than one. “I was just doing what had to be done to save both of them,” he replies. _And to save Olivia_ , he doesn't add.

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, with a sad smile, “but you did it even knowing there would be a great risk to yourself in the process.”

Peter shrugs and looks away. He still has his memories of what the future would have been like if he hadn't had the chance to change things – and even now, when he's seen what it's done to him personally, he can't regret his choice. After all, Olivia is alive, and Walter isn't in prison ... and it's possible that his biological father might actually work through his bitterness to help stop the universes from crumbling.

The Doctor has been watching Peter in silence since his last statement. There's sympathy in his eyes, and a deep sadness that makes him look much older than Peter would have guessed at first. Peter wonders what choice the Doctor made to end up here.

“But enough of that,” the Doctor says suddenly, turning around in a complete circle as if looking for something. “Just because we don't exist doesn't give us an excuse to sit around doing nothing.”

“Is that so?” Peter says, amused in spite of everything. “I'd think that if any circumstance gave me an excuse to--”

“No, no, come on now, Bishop!” The Doctor picks a direction and strides forward a few feet. “Don't tell me you'd rather sit around and wait to start existing again.”

Peter experiences an all-too-familiar mixture of confusion and irritation as he hurries to catch up. _God, if he were ever in the same room as my father..._ “What do you mean? Doctor, are you implying that we can get out of here, back to our lives?”

The Doctor looks at him in bewilderment. “Of course we can! Where do you think Rory went off to? He's back with Amy now, and they're about to get married.”

Which means Amy must remember him, Peter thinks, feeling hopeful for the first time since he arrived here. “So what do we do?”

“We have to try to get them to remember us – your Olivia, in your case, and incidentally I'd love to get the chance to meet her, too – and Amy in mine,” he answers. He looks a little bit sheepish as he continues, “And yes, all right, I admit: that rather limits what we can do, since it's mostly their responsibility to do the remembering, but that's what I've got. It's been a while since the last time I didn't exist, after all.”

“Since the last time--?” Peter shakes his head. “Never mind, I don't want to know. Let's just stay focused here.” He had already been able to reach Olivia in some way. He could do it again.

"Exactly," the Doctor says, rubbing his hands together. "Onward, then."

**Author's Note:**

> As I tried to figure out what might be in store for Peter after the season 3 finale, the idea of having him meet up with some of my other favorite characters who have had to deal with (temporary) nonexistence was too intriguing to resist. This is the result.


End file.
